Documents Jonsson, Johanna 3 results

"Objectives
The aims of this position paper are to (i) summarize research on precarious employment (PE) in the context of occupational health; (ii) develop a theoretical framework that distinguishes PE from related concepts and delineates important contextual factors; and (iii) identify key methodological challenges and directions for future research on PE and health.
Methods
This position paper is the result of a working group consisting of researchers from the EU, Turkey and the USA, who have discussed the issue over the course of six months (October 2018–April 2019), meeting both online and face-to-face on several occasions.
Results
The lack of a common theoretical framework of PE hinders it from becoming an established part of occupational and public health research. There are also issues regarding operationalization in surveys and registers. Further, previous research on PE and health suffers from methodological limitations including inadequate study designs and biased assessments of exposure and outcomes. PE is highly dependent on contextual factors and cross-country comparison has proven very difficult. We also point to the uneven social distribution of PE, ie, higher prevalence among women, immigrants, young and low educated. We propose a theoretical framework for understanding precarious employment as a multidimensional construct.
Conclusions
A generally accepted multidimensional definition of PE should be the highest priority. Future studies would benefit from improved exposure assessment, temporal resolution, and accounting for confounders, as well as testing possible mechanisms, eg, by adopting multi-level and intersectional analytical approaches in order to understand the complexity of PE and its relation to health."

"Objectives
The lack of a common definition for precarious employment (PE) severely hampers the comparison of studies within and between countries, consequently reducing the applicability of research findings. We carried out a systematic review to summarize how PE has been conceptualized and implemented in research and identify the construct's dimensions in order to facilitate guidance on its operationalization.
Methods
According to PRISMA guidelines, we searched Web of Science and Scopus for publications with variations of PE in the title or abstract. The search returned 1225 unique entries, which were screened for eligibility. Exclusion criteria were (i) language other than English, (ii) lack of a definition for PE, and (iii) non-original research. A total of 63 full-text articles were included and qualitative thematic-analysis was performed in order to identify dimensions of PE.
Results
We identified several theory-based definitions of PE developed by previous researchers. Most definitions and operationalizations were either an accommodation to available data or the direct result of qualitative studies identifying themes of PE. The thematic-analysis of the selected articles resulted in a multidimensional construct including the following three dimensions: employment insecurity, income inadequacy, and lack of rights and protection.
Conclusions
Despite a growing number of studies on PE, most fail to clearly define the concept, severely restricting the advancement of the research of PE as a social determinant of health. Our combined theoretical and empirical review suggests that a common multidimensional definition could be developed and deployed in different labor market contexts using a variety of methodological approaches."

"Objectives
An individual's quality of employment over time has been highlighted as a potential determinant of mental health. With mental ill-health greatly contributing to work incapacities and disabilities in Belgium, the present study aims to explore whether mental health, as indicated by registered mental health-related disability, is structured along the lines of employment quality, whereby employment quality is assessed over time as part of individuals' labour market trajectories.
Methods
Using administrative data from the Belgian Crossroads Bank for Social Security over 16 quarters between 2006 and 2009, transitions between waged jobs of varying quality (based on dimensions of income, working time, employment stability and multiple jobholding), self-employment, and unemployment are considered among individuals in the labour force aged 30–40 at baseline (n = 41,065 women and 45,667 men). With Multichannel Sequence Analysis and clustering, we constructed ideal types of employment trajectories. Fitting Cox regressions, we then evaluated individuals' hazard of experiencing a disability from a mental disorder between 2010 and 2016.
Results
Our analysis highlights various gender-specific trajectories. Among both genders, individuals exposed to near-constant unemployment over the initial 4 years showed the highest hazard of subsequent mental health-related disability compared to a group characterised by stable full-time employment, single jobholding, and above-median income. Trajectories involving a higher probability of subsidised and non-standard employment and (potential) spells of unemployment and lower relative income were also strong predictors of cause-specific disabilities. Health selection and confounding might, however, be contributing factors.
Conclusions
Our study shows a gradient of mental disorders resulting in a disability along trajectory types. Our findings highlight the predictive power of labour market trajectories and their employment quality for subsequent mental disorder-related disability. Future research should examine the mechanisms, including selection effects in this association."